How to improve the productivity of your furniture manufacturing workshop in 8 steps

Productivity in furniture-making workshops will depend on a clever mix of people, equipment and efficient processes. To make improvements in all these areas, it is necessary to review current practices and adjust systems, staff training and even the equipment used to generate parts and components.

Regardless of the size of the business, increasing productivity in a furniture manufacturing facility is critical to increasing profits and maintaining competitiveness in an increasingly saturated and demanding market.

But before adopting any method to improve productivity, it is rather advisable to measure existing production levels, create a baseline and implement solutions that measure changes and compare.

These eight steps will help you design a more productive and efficient furniture making workshop.

Examine the existing workflow.

The first step is to identify weaknesses in the current workflow. Analyze technology, people and all processes, procedures, tools and resources involved in furniture production.

Perhaps you could consider using value cards as an effective way to identify and monitor projects to improve processes; This strategy is very useful because it allows managers to identify problems and record the impact of each of these changes on the system in general.

Update business processes.

Sharing current workflow issues with project managers will allow for a more holistic vision to develop improvement plans in the manufacturing process. This could result in reallocation of resources to different areas of manufacturing, budget management or ISO certification.
At this stage, it is necessary to systematically evaluate performance and interpret the changes correctly.

Have realistic expectations.

Customer expectations, production pressures and tight deadlines can contribute to unrealistic goals. When workload benchmarks in the manufacturing facility are inaccessible without any commitment to safety or quality, employees are dissatisfied, preventing the company from achieving its work objectives.
To enhance worker effectiveness, it is important to set realistic and clearly defined objectives that ensure both punctuality, high quality results and safe procedures.

Equip your workshop with smarter machining tools.

Furniture manufacturing is an industry in which an employee can not be as productive as his tools.
While machines, such as cutting machines or CNCs, can be expensive in terms of initial configuration and training, advanced equipment can have a long-term positive effect on production.
There is evidence that manufacturers who perform regular machine maintenance manage to remain competitive in a market as competitive and innovative as that of the furniture sector. But it is equally important to invest in software that drives not only a machine, but often the entire machine fleet, as well as the rest of the operations, in a continuous flow of information. Hence the importance of using a flexible and precise software, adaptable to any type of machine configuration and multi-brand. In this sense, Teowin is able to “speak the language of the machine” because it generates a program in which all naming, machining and technical information comes from its 3D configurator, ensuring that all the manufacturing information be contained. in the 3D object, but it also generates the barcode labels that make it possible to call the program of the machine when the piece passes in front.

Invest in maintenance.

Although new equipment can increase productivity, it also requires maintenance to keep operating at optimum levels. Similarly, as we said in the previous paragraph, the maintenance of software is as important as that of machines. In this sense, this service guarantees communication with customer service, which resolves doubts, operating incidents, offers suggestions for improvement and assists the user in the process of reinstallation and transfer of information. Moreover, in the particular case of Teowin, this contract guarantees the constant updating of the software, whether in terms of catalog or the application itself.

Many of these developments are distributed through the TeoService application, which manages downloads of the latest changes, be they software enhancements, market-imposed adaptations (such as VAT changes, etc.). or data updates (news in manufacturers’ catalogs).

Invest in the ongoing training of employees.

The manufacturing, machining and cutting industries are constantly evolving; There is still a new technology that promises to make furniture making workshops more efficient than ever.
Technological advances often change the skills required for certain tasks and workers will have to undergo regular training in order to be able to follow the most advanced skills.

Stay organized

The amount of money lost and hours of work lost due to lack of organization can be instructive.
One surefire way to improve productivity in any environment is to make sure there is a well-organized place for everything from materials to tools to documents.
When organizing the work area, consider the design of the machining equipment and tools and determine if they are optimal in terms of efficiency. If not, you should consider reorganizing the manufacturing plant to create a more uniform workflow, including eliminating or avoiding the bottlenecks in the manufacturing process. When they appear systematically, it is a clear signal and an indicator that something is not working properly. When parts are blocked at the entrance or exit of a post, the reasons may be different, but this is always due to a poor optimization of resources: incorrect grouping of orders, lack of follow-up in the production line, deficient work protocols, less workload than machines are capable of producing, intermediate stock problem, lack of human resources, quality problems, etc. Identifying and resolving these bottlenecks will improve the fluidity of the circuit, and ultimately the profitability of the productive tool. It is also at this stage that software such as Teowin becomes a valuable ally, both in its production version and in its most complete version, Teowin ERP.

Foster collaboration.

The manufacturing workshop is more productive when everyone works together towards the same goal with the least waste and possible conflict. While it is important to focus on work, it is also important to ensure that each staff member feels at home on a team. The more members of your team can work together, the more they will foster a productive culture in the workplace.